story time!

Once upon a time...

there was a girl...

she was short...

and she was in southern california during finals week!

She got to play with her friend diane...

it was heaven...

 reminiscing, garage saling (how DO you spell that?), amazing race watching, salvation army shopping, giant wicker giraffe purchasing, christmas party going, pride and prejudice watching, steve guttenberg getting his star on the hollywood walk of fame watching, convertible riding, napolean dynamite meeting, pretzel buying and eating, more chatting, good food eating, bush family partying (sequence whooping), towel animal making, chatting, temple going, and friendship cherishing :)

Next she was off to UC Irvine for some experiments for her dissertation...

(she was a nerd).

She got a hotel room all to herself with a sitting area...

a kitchen area...

and three sinks!

She took BEAUTIFUL pictures of her little cells...

as they died...

tragic deaths.

Then all too fast it was thursday night...

and she had a take-home final due on friday!

She had big plans...

to start working on it right after she got back to the hotel that night...

but of course she had delicious take-out from a mexican restaurant that she had to eat first.

And of course she'd worked hard all day...

and deserved to watch a movie...

JUST while she ate...

right?

So she put on a chick flick...

one she'd never seen before...

and it sucked her in...

long after her dinner was gone.

But it was going to be worth it...

right?

Then all of a sudden...

the male lead...

realized he really DID love the girl...

and was going to chase her...

and win her back.

But first he took a boat ride...

and a storm came up...

and he saw a family shipwrecked...

so of course, he being the male lead in a chick flick...

jumped out of his boat to save them.

AND HE DIED.

YES....HE DIED.

And then this short girl in california....

she cried...

yes...embarrassing as it is...

she cried.

And then the movie ENDED.

And our little friend realized...

she still had a final due tomorrow...

and the chick flick was NOT worth it...

and then she blogged about it...

instead of getting right to work.

See, our little friend is kind of dumb sometimes.

THE END.

guess what?

I JUST PASSED MY PROSPECTUS DEFENSE!! now bring on california :) (after i finish a paper, a take-home test, and an assignment...but hey a lot closer than i was!)

content :)

i am currently finishing my prospectus presentation for my defense tomorrow...kind of stressful... BUT something about studying with a christmas tree makes it all better :) i love twinkle lights!

victory!!

my written prospectus is now D-O-N-E.  :) relief.  now i just have to prepare my presentation for the defense...

randoms

after eating waffles, cleaning my whole house, and rocking out to awesome music while doing so... i am sitting down to finish my prospectus!!! i will not get up until it's done.  i knew if i committed on the internet i had to do it right?? right. i'm sure there will be a celebratory post coming shortly (well maybe not shortly...but eventually ha!)

guess what i just did?

Thanksgiving Part II

To start off the holiday, Annie and I ran a 5k in Draper!

 in the car before the race...

Mandy and Chantelle joined us!

AFTER the race! excited about Annie's first 5k!!

Then off to the Glenns' for wonderful food and fun company :) here we are with Grandma Glenn!

And more of the group! (missing a lot...)

Annie and I then went over to say hi to the Stonemans! They fed us wonderful pie and we had fun visiting and joining in a Christmas sing-a-long with the whole group! Highlights:
*the grandsons getting super excited when they heard annie and I were there! Then some confusion...turned out they heard "a lizard is here!" Turns out cousin Liz is NOT as exciting as a real lizard.
*Calvin's dance during the group's rendition of "Feliz Navidad"
*Gunther requesting an encore of "Feliz Navidad"
*Little Kayla correcting Uncle Augie's confusion with the page numbers again and again
*Playing football with Grahamburger :)

OTHER WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:
-> Fun shopping day getting Josh's Christmas package all put together with Annie.  Now today we'll get it shipped off to Mexico!
-> A fun visit with Michelle! (and a repeat of our favorite past time: singing at the piano! it'd been way too long!)
-> Michelle and I headed over to Lori's house for a visit with the whole Riches family! love that house. intense mario kart tourney.  reminiscing. teasing kristin. the usual.
-> movie marathons with annie! holiday inn, random chick flicks on TV while waiting for our jello creation to set up, anne of green gables AND anne of avonlea (the gilbert version...where you skip any part without gilbert in it), and the music man!

Annie and I were so grateful to our extended family for making us feel so welcome! We missed mom and dad in Russia, the Bosters in Texas, the Shawcrofts in Colorado, and Josh in Mexcio...but we are certainly grateful for skype this year!! technology is a great blessing in my life as my family is scattered around the world.  I'm also very grateful for my dear sister Annie holding down fort here in the family home so I have a place to come home to :)

More than anything, I am thankful for the Atonement of my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I am grateful for His ability to do it, His willingness to do it, and His love for each of us that motivated Him to do it.  I am grateful that it makes it possible for me to enjoy peace, healing, and progression. I'm grateful He never gives up on me :) He is my truest friend.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

loved this youtube video on modesty!

loved this video..
(1) because i totally agree
(2) because they added lots of nerdy science stuff to prove it :-) haha! pretty legit

happy thanksgibbons! :)

so abby and ryan are headed to colorado for thanksgiving...so we decided to have our thanksgibbons feast on saturday before they left. this was our first time without mama to be the master chef! in annie's words, "not bad for some snot-nosed kids!"

Annie: Turkey and Rolls

Abby: Pumpkin Pie and Gravy

Liz: Mashed Potatoes and Corn

Ryan: Turkey Carving (by the way...check out that smolder)

Group Effort: Stuffing 

our spread!

Then...keeping with gibbons tradition, we opened up the Christmas season with WHITE CHRISTMAS!!

WELCOME CHRISTMAS TIME!!

  

so this one time it was halloween

so i just realized i never posted about halloween!

A) by some miracle, i won 6 free tickets to lagoon's Frightmares from the radio by submitting THIS PHOTO as a "scary costume picture"

 yup that's what happens when you get the family costume box out at the gibbons house. good times! so this was my first time at frightmares and i didn't know there was going to be random scary people roaming around. k so we'd just gotten off the wild mouse (rollercoaster) and i glanced over at a bench and saw this creepy looking girl sitting on it. k so i couldn't figure out if she was a statue or what so i kept staring at her. so of course when she notices me with the scared look on my face, she comes RIGHT for me and it was the freakiest moment of my life. they could smell my fear!! so i of course acted like a 5 year old and hid behind the guys we were with. then of course the rest of the night, all the scary people would come right for me! so my roommates taught me how to play it cool haha...i got better... so yeah, definitely the roller coasters were my favorite part!! i'd forgotten how much i LOVE rollercoasters. this is the group right before one of the haunted houses:

B) my friend josh had the coolest idea for a costume ever! we rented waders and nets from the life sciences stockroom in our research building.  who knew how fun it is to dance in waders?? you should have seen me bust a move.

C) Stephanie needed a good costume for her school's parade (she teaches 6th grade) and we thought rapunzel was perfect. but of course we didn't start putting it together until 8:00 the night before! good thing i am a DI master and spotted this top (made for an 8 year old) and snagged it before anyone else did.  marissa was a genius and cut it so we could lace it up with pink ribbon.  the dirty, $0.25 lizard we found at DI makes a pretty good pascal don't you think?? we are good.